Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly by Donald Thomas Page B

Riley waiting to throw himself under the wheels of the engine. A situation which also gave welcome support to Winter’s judgement of the boy. It has been evident to me from an early point in our case, Watson, that this had little to do with a stolen postal order. That was the means to an end. Ten shillings and sixpence, though always welcome, is hardly worth risking the rest of one’s career for, unless one is a pathological thief and liar. Patrick Riley is no such thing. Sovran-Phillips is a repulsive piece of work but also an ambitious one.”
    â€œThe Admiral’s Nomination?”
    â€œPrecisely. Imagine this son of a prestigious naval family, with a cruiser captain for a step-brother, and an admiral lurking in the ancestral shadows. He regards a Nomination as his birthright. The money is nothing to him, it is the prestige. The racing start that it would give to a chap’s career. There is only one Nomination for each year at St Vincent’s.”
    â€œAnd would he not get it?”
    â€œI am sure Reginald Winter would dearly love him to. His report, as headmaster, would say so. Term prefect and Captain of Boats, like his brother before him. Cricket, boxing, football. The irony is that he might have got a Nomination in any case. But then there was Patrick Riley. No naval influence, father a bank clerk, a starveling, as they call it. Obliged to win his way by brains or talent. A rather lonely boy whose so-called friends easily turned against him. Organised bully-ragging might break him—and bully-ragging is not discouraged by the likes of Winter, who regards it as character-building. A plausible charge of theft, even if not fully proved, would put him out of the running. By taking his hope of preferment, that also might break him. Confidential dismissal.”
    â€œAfter all,” I said, “he would not go to prison, merely to professional disgrace in the Royal Navy. There he would always be the boy accused of stealing the postal order.”
    â€œPrecisely. Sovran-Phillips and his kind have influence. But the likes of Jackie Fisher value brains and talent. Suppose influence should fail. Riley was the one boy whose mind and enthusiasms could beat Sovran-Phillips—or so Phillips thought. Even Reginald Winter might not be able to save his favourite Ocean Swell.”
    The little pieces formed their pattern as we took dinner in the Pullman car of the express from Portsmouth to Waterloo.
    How easily Phillips might purloin a braided jacket for half an hour and a pair of glasses from the locker of a boy who wore them. How easily he could provide himself with an exeat permit of his own devising. The impress of the last one issued would be on the thin paper of his pad. Only the master’s initials need be traced. But who would challenge the captain of his year or do more than glance at the exeat ? Tracing over Porson’s permit and the boy’s signature, the indentation would be left upon the postal order. He had only to follow this impress at the post office counter. Riley’s game with Porson and the “exchange” of signatures had been nothing but a joke and no more than amateur copying. It was Sovran-Phillips who had proved to be the professional thief.
    We were later informed that Sovran-Phillips had left St Vincent’s as soon as his bags could be packed. This did not surprise me. Even when I escorted him to get his pad of exeat permits, I thought he might bolt there and then, out of the nearest door. It was said that he left school on medical advice, consequent on contracting a nervous fever. No proceedings were taken against him. With his departure, it was possible for Reginald Winter to inform the governors that the case had been fully investigated and no boy at his school was involved in it. The money had been found abandoned near the school grounds and restored to its owner.
    Their lordships of the Admiralty discontinued their licencing of St